Federal Budget
June 5, 2026 — Bill Glahn
The trend is your friend. John had already covered earlier today the big news on the blowout May jobs report and the upward revisions on past months’ data. I like to dig into the report each month for certain numbers that reinforce helpful trends within the bigger trends. In May, the federal government workforce shrunk by another 2,600 for the month. The post office made up for that with more
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May 8, 2026 — Bill Glahn
The April jobs report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), Payroll employment edges up by 115,000 in April; unemployment rate unchanged at 4.3% My favorite paragraph, Federal government employment continued to decline in April (-9,000). Since reaching a peak in October 2024, federal government employment is down by 348,000, or 11.5 percent. The BLS makes clear that this decline is not the artifact of any government shutdown. As
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April 30, 2026 — Bill Glahn
From Politico, Trump signs DHS legislation, ending record-breaking shutdown. Record-breaking? Politico reports, After more than 10 weeks, the president’s signature restores funding to the Coast Guard, TSA, Secret Service, FEMA and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, along with other sub-agencies that don’t touch immigration enforcement. What about those sub-agencies that do touch immigration enforcement? The Hill newspaper reports, ICE and border enforcement, though, still remain unfunded. Republicans are seeking
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April 26, 2026 — Bill Glahn
Naive me. I genuinely thought that the day after the night before would see more attention paid to the basic fact that the U.S. Secret Service (part of the Dept. of Homeland Security, DHS) has gone without funding for the past 71 days on account of Senate Democrats. The only outlet that I’ve seen discuss the matter is Fox News. A shooting near President Donald Trump and several Cabinet members
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March 29, 2026 — Bill Glahn
From The Hill newspaper, Top House Democrat on Biden immigration policy: ‘We should have the border more secure than it was’ More secure than what? More secure during the Biden Administration. The Democrat quoted is Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA), appearing on the Fox News Sunday morning talk shows. The Hill quotes Rep. Smith, The Biden administration did not do immigration enforcement the way it should have. We should have [had]
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March 22, 2026 — John Hinderaker
President Trump announced this morning that he is deploying ICE to airports to help ease congestion caused by the Democrats’ shutdown: ICE officers will be deployed to airports to help clear the horrendous security lines for the TSA, which ran out of funding more than a month ago because of a Democrat shutdown, President Trump announced Sunday. The move is meant to speed up security lines, which have stretched up
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March 17, 2026 — Bill Glahn
From the U.K Daily Mail, The two enormous airports plunged into travel hell by ongoing TSA staff shortages and nightmare spring storm. The two airports are Houston’s Intercontinental (IAH) and Florida’s Ft. Lauderdale (FLL). The latter, of course, is a big spring break destination. The Daily Mail reports, Frustrated passengers dealing with delays in Houston, Texas, have now been given cots to sleep on, while others in Fort Lauderdale, Florida,
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March 15, 2026 — Bill Glahn
From The Hill newspaper, Airline CEOs ask Congress for TSA agents to be paid during shutdown. “Congress” isn’t the problem. Senate Democrats refuse to put up a handful of votes so that TSA, the Coast Guard, FEMA, and a handful of other agencies under the Dept. of Homeland Security (DHS) can get their budgets approved through the end of September. The Hill reports, A group of 10 airline CEOs sent
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March 8, 2026 — Bill Glahn
From FOX-26 TV (Houston), Hobby Airport warns of 2-hour TSA wait due to government shutdown. On Twitter (X) I was seeing reports of 4- and 5-hour delays for security screening at Houston’s second airport. To the extent that they were ever aware, most Americans have forgotten that we are officially in a government shutdown. Or, at least those bits of the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security (DHS) that have nothing
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February 13, 2026 — Bill Glahn
You may not notice it, but we will have another federal government “shutdown” at midnight tonight. Well, not all of government, just parts of the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security (DHS), such as the Coast Guard, FEMA and TSA. Democrats are complaining about a different part of DHS: ICE, which enforces federal immigration law. Oddly enough, ICE will hot be impacted by the shutdown, with Congress having already passed their
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February 11, 2026 — Bill Glahn
From today’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) unemployment report, In January, federal government employment continued to decline (-34,000) as some federal employees who accepted a deferred resignation offer in 2025 came off federal payrolls. Since reaching a peak in October 2024, federal government employment is down by 327,000, or 10.9 percent. Quite a turnaround. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate continues to fall, down to 4.3 percent in January. Payroll jobs were
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February 8, 2026 — Bill Glahn
I guess we’ll have another federal government “shutdown” starting on Friday night. Except it will only impact a single federal agency, the Department of Homeland Security. And not even all of that, as I understand that ICE and Border Patrol already have approved budgets. Congress worked out a full budget covering all agencies through the end of September. Republicans have already conceded much ground on spending, and everyone on both
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February 3, 2026 — Bill Glahn
From The Hill newspaper, House sends funding package ending partial shutdown to Trump’s desk. What shutdown? It turns out that large parts of the federal government were “show down” for the past three days. Funding for Homeland Security has been approved for the next two weeks and the rest is fully funded (at bloated levels) through the end of September. Democrats will continue complaining about the ICE part of DHS
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January 31, 2026 — Bill Glahn
News from Washington: the “shutdown” has been kicked down the road for two more weeks. From Politico, Senate passes $1.2T government funding deal — but a brief shutdown is certain. The “T” stands for “trillion.” If the U.S. House of Representatives goes along with the deal Monday evening, all but a few federal agencies will be full funded through the end of September, with parts of Homeland Security just getting
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December 17, 2025 — Bill Glahn
A roundup of federal investigations of fraud in Minnesota, Health & Human Services (HHS):HHS probes Minnesota’s use of billions in federal social service funds amid fraud concerns: report. Labor: Labor Department sending unemployment insurance ‘strike team’ to investigate Minnesota fraud. Homeland Security (DHS): Ilhan Omar lashes out at ‘sick’ Republicans for investigating her alleged marriage to brother. Housing and Urban Development (HUD):Trump HUD sending staff into Minnesota to investigate amid
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December 16, 2025 — Bill Glahn
The sentence of the day, courtesy the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Federal government employment is down by 271,000 since reaching a peak in January. That figure is not an artifact of the government shut down, but represents real reductions in the federal workforce under Trump 2.0 and DOGE. That happy news was delivered via today’s unemployment report for November. Because of the record-long government “shutdown,” the BLS report
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December 13, 2025 — John Hinderaker
Has 2025 been a disastrous year for nonprofits? Allegedly so: For nonprofit organizations and charities — which the administration and Congress have scrutinized, criticized and stripped of federal money — it’s been a repeat of the terrible difficulties of 2008, when the rapid onset of recession led donors to cut back on contributions. At least one out of three nonprofit organizations experienced a disruption of services in the first half
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